


depth over distance

by starvcdsaint



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pining, Post-Endgame, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 10:56:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19083625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starvcdsaint/pseuds/starvcdsaint
Summary: this is penance for my sins, this is lifelong suffering, execution and destruction. and you are not coming for me.





	depth over distance

it comes softly in the night, the cold tightening around his throat. he feels it, like a snake curling around his limbs, suffocating him of all life, all history.

 

this is what they did to him.

 

he feels his hands on that cold metal and almost misses the feeling.

 

he sees him there, out of reach.

 

and maybe steve was always out of bucky’s reach. maybe that’s all they ever were — separated by the cold, separated by time and silent words.

 

and steve is calling his name, but the sound simply rings in bucky’s ears, like electricity, and he feels it again, the sparks coursing through his skull, erasing parts of him again and again, and again and again.

 

it feels like falling, it feels like the bitter cold.

 

he falls, and the scream jumps from his body, becoming its own form, before it pulls his arm from him.

 

bucky wakes, overheated and soaked, his heart beating out of his chest. he no longer screams at the nightmares. they can do no more harm than what has already been done.

 

this is what they did to him.

 

“Блядь,” bucky curses, shifting upward, already feeling the headache coming on. his arm is tired, numb, like he slept on it. “useless,” he tells it, and himself.

 

whenever he was high on hydra’s jackshit, confused by the unfamiliarity of his own body, and he’d get a glimpse of memory, it always had to fucking be that one, replaying in his head. he tells himself that it’s simply because it was the freshest, but it’s because it was what hurt the most.

 

steve right next to him and so far apart from him, feeling the arctic clawing up his body, replacing his warm blood for running ice. he felt, right then and there, like he was being torn in two. and maybe that means a lot of things, but to him, it always used to mean steve.

 

**•**  
  


bucky hears it later that afternoon, a faint knocking at his door.

 

"bucky?" it's sam. he sounds so hesitant, like if bucky doesn't answer, he'd leave him be. and that's almost what bucky wants, to be left alone, even if he knows it isn't good for him.

 

he finishes pouring his coffee. the mug burns his hand, but he doesn't flinch. "one second."

 

he hears sam's quiet "okay", carrying the mug in his other hand, feeling nothing this time, as he walks towards the door.

 

sam is standing on the other side. he smiles as he sees bucky, but his eyes are also sad. he looks bucky over. "you looking good." it sounds more like a question than a statement. but it makes bucky chuckle. "you too, babe."

 

the name makes sam laugh, and the sad glint in his eyes fades. relieved by that, bucky moves aside. 

 

"fuck you," sam says as he moves inside past bucky.

 

he looks around as bucky closes the door. his coffee is still too hot to drink, one failed attempt leaving the tip of his tongue sore.

 

"you settling in nice?"

 

bucky looks around at his own apartment, remembering seeing it for the first time when steve brought him pictures in wakanda, telling him he'd found a place for buck to stay after the war, if he wanted to.

 

he supposes now that it was childish, but he'd always thought they'd be here together.

 

bucky thought it looked warmer in the pictures.

 

bucky just shrugs in response to sam's question, attempting again at his coffee. "it's alright." it's small, but it's a lot better than anywhere he's had before, besides maybe wakanda — that place was beautiful, but he never wanted to go back. too many memories now, even for a short time. too many things that ache.

 

_ steve? _

 

he remembers the sensation he had felt, of him turning to ash, how it had spread from his fingertips, but then feeling nothing as it reached the other side.

 

and he remembers how it felt coming back, missing steve more than he thought possible.

 

(but in his bones he'd felt just right — he knew what it was like to miss him. he's felt that since he first laid eyes on him, cuts on his cheek, scrawny bones, dirty hair.

 

and maybe, bucky thought, he'd loved him before he even ever knew him.)

 

and he remembers how it felt to see him leave.

 

that was always how it was going to be, he thinks. no happy endings, not even a goodbye.

 

one of them watching the other leave, an unsaid word in their mouth. bucky feels like it'd been choking him for years. steve must have just forgotten it was even ever there at all.

 

sam's drifted off to look at bucky's shelves, a mess of picture frames, bucky's own random possessions, and whatever books he's had the time to pick up and actually read. he's letting bucky think, he knows. sam always does this, waits for bucky to think and then speak. and bucky has always been thankful for that. he's spent too many years with someone else's words coming out of his mouth, someone else's wishes coming to fruition in the blood on his hands. 

 

it's nice having someone around who cares what he thinks, though sam may never admit that. 

 

it was the same with natasha. it was the same with steve.

 

gone. gone.

 

sam picks up a photo of steve and bucky. it's without a frame, badly crumpled. it's of the two of them back in the war.

 

back then, bucky would never of thought them to be happy. but now, with everything, he would. even though he was still killing, even though the blood on his hands was drowning him, even then, he still knew whose hands they were — and who he was killing for.

 

"they're asking about you, you know."

 

"i know."

 

sam puts the photo down, turning around, watching bucky drink his coffee.

 

bucky's eyes wander to the photo now back on the shelf. he watches his and steve's black and white faces, stern, so distant, unbelievably far away. in the photo, bucky is looking at steve, and steve is looking away. always, always looking away. even when steve was looking right at him.

 

and bucky's read enough to know what poets say of love, that it was easy, the same way breathing is.

 

but, god, it wasn't. it really wasn't. 

 

Чушь собачьыа

 

"he was a good guy," sam says, his eyes still lingering on the photo.

 

"he was." and bucky hates the way his voice shakes when he says it. he can feel sam watching him, eyes gnawing into his skull, asking for acceptance, for permission, for  _ something _ . and bucky loves him for it, god help him.

 

"it's not a bad thing," sam says, almost sounding apologetic.

 

"what isn't?"

 

sam's reached the door now. he doesn't look at bucky when he says, "loving him too much."

 

bucky stiffens.

 

"let me know if you ever need anything, buck. i'm here. but i know you know that." and he leaves. bucky waits for his footsteps to wane.

 

"i know it isn't." and he means it.

  
**•**

 

"you've gotta stop this."

 

bucky dabs the towel over the curve of steve's brow, frowning at the blood that comes back on it. steve winces and bucky's heart drops straight to his stomach.

 

"you're gonna get yourself killed."

 

"they called my momma a name." steve's face is set stern. he believes it's noble what he's done, bucky knows. his lip is split and the blood edges through pale skin when he talks. there's tears in his eyes.

 

that's new, bucky thinks. steve never cries. no matter how many bruises they get out of him, he never gives them that.

 

"and...t-they… they called you a name, too."

 

"really?" bucky asks, his eyebrows raised. he's smiling at steve, but steve's expression doesn't falter. "like what?"

 

steve hesitates, biting his lip. but he bites too hard, and the blood forces itself out. "stop that," bucky tells him, cradling steve's jaw with his other hand, moving the towel to his lip. but steve turns away, getting up. he grips his side, in pain.

 

"i'll kill 'em," ignoring bucky's question.

 

"sure you will," bucky says, placing his arms around steve and leading him to their sofa. "just as long as you stop bleedin' all over my nice floors."

 

"...my floors…" steve says through gritted teeth. bucky lays him down on the sofa, chuckling, though it hurts to see him like this. it hurts so goddamn much, the little fucker.

 

"sure.. your floors.." bucky rubs steve's hair out of his eyes. "rest. don't move or i'll knock you out."

 

it makes steve laugh. "yeah, right. you wouldn't.. l-lay a f-finger on me if someone offered you all the dames in the w-world."

 

and god help him, he's right.

 

"watch me," he replies, instead, but it's so quiet, bucky thinks steve might not have even heard him.

 

steve's eyes flutter closed and his breathing slows.

 

bucky watches him for a moment, then, hesitantly, puts his lips on steve's forehead. he tastes like dirt and sweat, but still so sweet. buck's heart aches and he closes his eyes, feeling steve's breathing gradually match bucky's.

 

_ goddamn you, steve, jesus christ _ .

 

after a long moment, bucky starts to get up, leaving steve to rest, but he feels steve's grip on him tighten, keeping him there.

 

so he stays.

 

swear on god, he'd always stay.  
  


**•**

 

s.h.i.e.l.d., or whatever it is now, calls him later that week, offering him a job.

 

_ it’s not an avengers job _ , they say when there’s no response on the other line.  _ if you want, they won’t even know you’ve left the house. _ at that, bucky immediately thinks of sam, of him knocking on bucky’s door and never getting a reply.

 

they tell him it’s a discrete job, undercover mostly, until he can get alone with the target. then, they tell him, he needs to “take care” of him. bucky winces. though he knows he’s technically working for the “good guys” now, he can’t help but note that they have an awfully similar way of handling things.

 

bucky takes the job. much as it makes him sick, he does.

  
  


and these things are always easier when you're going through life half asleep.

 

the blood never triggered anything in him but a wince. now it takes scotch and a whole pack of marlboros to wash down the disgust he feels with himself. and he tells himself that it's because of those things that he spends the night on his knees on the cold tile of the hotel bathroom. but it isn't. 

 

it wasn't a lie what he told stark. he did remember them. all of them. everyone single one. he remembers squeezing the life from them are watching them bleed before he sent one last bullet between their eyes. something in him now tells him the second shot was always so he could watch it stop. but he isn't even sure. maybe it was mercy. maybe it was righteousness. either way, he becomes death. 

 

steve used to tell him it wasn't him. but, god, he's never felt so alive. he's never felt so dead.

  
  


and he remembers how it felt to watch stark's eyes pierce through his, stark doing everything he could to take him out. and sure, he had been scared. but he remembers wanting it, too. wanting someone to end it so he wouldn't have to. and then he'd see steve standing there, beating death in the face if it meant keeping him from bucky.

 

ever since the serum, their roles felt reversed — steve coming for whoever even thought about laying a finger on bucky, and bucky laying there, tasting blood in his mouth and a twisting in his chest.

 

_ eat my heart, will you? take it right out of me, like you've always done. _

 

and he wants him, again, in all his violent glory. he wants him pulling out the gun bucky has shoved down his own throat.

 

but he doesn't show, so bucky sets the gun down. it feels like he took the shot. it feels like dying.

  
  


he leaves before they tell him to. he needs to leave. he calls it leaving, though it's really running.

 

**•**

 

_ it might be good to write it down, _ sam tells him on the phone.  _ man, don't laugh, i know it's cheesy. but it helps. it really does. i mean, it helped me with.. you know, riley, and all. _

 

bucky's fakes a smile. even though sam can't see it, maybe he can hear it.

 

_ just try it, buck. _

 

that fucking nickname. bucky wants to tell him to stop. the word doesn't sound right in his mouth. it belongs to blond hair and blue eyes and a hardened smile and rough hands and artist's arms..

 

but he doesn't. now, he thinks, it should belong to sam. he wants it all to belong to sam. so he stifles the stitch in his throat and says he'll try it, because he really will.

 

_ thanks, man _ , sam replies. bucky doesn't know why he says that, but he gives him a short  _ yeah _ and hangs up.

 

and he's left staring at the dust collecting on picture frames.

 

 

**•**

 

so this is what it's like.

 

bucky makes steve go out every once in a while, whenever he's good enough to do it. and it was always dancing, something bucky was and always had been exceptional at.

 

but dancing was not steve's thing. and, to be honest, he wasn't great. though it makes bucky laugh watching him try, it's endearing. and it's so fucking sweet to watch him move, his cheeks rosy from embarrassment.

 

so bucky tells him he'd teach him one afternoon. steve refuses, still hunched over his drawings. but bucky walks over to him, first rustling his hair (which earns him some swats from steve), then, after a pause, he manages to quickly snatch the papers from steve. 

 

steve immediately jumps up, yelling for bucky to return them. but bucky holds them high above his head, laughing while steve tries to jump for them.

 

"buck, seriously, come on."

 

"nuh-uh, i'm gonna get you to quit your pouting whenever we go out. really stunts my mood."

 

but that might have been the wrong thing to say, because he sees steve grimace. he brushes it off with a laugh.

 

"come on, stevie, just one dance-" he looks up at the papers, then, and notices his own face staring back. bucky brings the papers down to look closer, but steve is quick, snatching them back.

 

steve's always drawing bucky, so he's no idea why he's being so shy about it now. 

 

"they're not finished."

 

bucky smiles at his small frame, then moves closer. "one dance?" he grabs steve's hand and steve looks at him, thinking. bucky can always see it — the wheels turning in his head.

 

"fine. one." 

 

bucky smiles and rustles his blond hair again. it earns him a chuckle, and, god, it sounds so good to hear, bucky could die, right then and there, happy.

 

he goes to get their record player going. then he returns to steve, stepping close to him. without asking, he puts his hand on the small of steve's back — "you do the same."  — and brings up steve's other hand, clasped in his own. he wants to intertwine their fingers, feel steve woven into him. but maybe another time, he tells himself. on another day, in some faraway place.

 

"stand on my feet," bucky tells him. steve does. their faces are inches apart. this is nothing new, as they sleep so close together, bucky wanting his warmth close to steve's shivering frame. even though, it sends a chill down his spine as his looks into steve's steely eyes.

 

he puts a smile on again, though all he wants to do is stare. and then he moves them, together, in one stroke, while the music plays. and it all falls away.

 

_ haven't felt like this my dear, since can't remember when. _

_ it's been a long, long time… _

  
**•**

 

i meant what i said when i said it: i was always going to be there. even until the end. and i would have been. i would follow you into hell to pull your dumb ass out.

 

but i told you not to follow me. and then there you were, leaning over the table. i saw the look in your eyes like i was the most important thing to you. difference was, that's how it looked on you, but that's how it  _ was  _ for me.

 

i guess i got too used to it all. the two of us, stretching across time, always ending up in the same place.

 

and i wanna know: how do her hips feel in your hands? is it something you could have only known with her? is she the only one you have ever loved? 

 

i know you love her, and i know she loves you. and i know that you deserve it: a happy ending, a family, no worries.

 

but does she love you like i do?

 

you loved me, and i was in love with you. in another lifetime this would have been enough. but we are ourselves — never enough and destined to part.

 

i get it now, you understand? i get it.

 

the blood on my hands and your lips on hers. 

 

and i wish he'd done it. when you were fighting for my life like it was your own, me lying there, watching you dance. 

 

i wish you hadn't. i wish you'd have let him do it. put an end to me like the fates keep begging for. maybe then you would get your peace.

 

and maybe then i would get mine.

 

because it’s hell loving you, so i’ve been burning all my life.

 

and it was foolish of me to ever think i wouldn’t be punished for all the sinning i’ve done.  _ do your worst _ , i would always say.  _ just don’t hurt him. let him have a happy life, even if it isn’t with me.  _

 

and that is what happened, my love. i always told myself that i would find a way to be happy for you. but i am selfish. this is penance for my sins, this is lifelong suffering, execution and destruction. and you are not coming for me. you have found elysium, and you will love it. your soul was never damned like mine.

 

this is the one where i lose you, and there’s no rescue from that. we are who we are. but i was in love with you. i should know by now that that would have never been enough.

 

so, if you are happy, then be happy. but if you are not, find me, and save me from myself. i will be waiting, i always will. leave some of your love for me, even if it’s only a little, and come back, come back to me. for this blood on my hands will soon turn to water, and it will drown me. i don’t believe in a life after this one, i lost that faith long ago. but if i did, it’d be you, and only you, and we would dance through fields — me with my blessed damned soul, and you with an untarnished halo, our love holy. 

 

we deserve that. we have suffered enough.

 

this is the one where you leave me, and there is no escaping that. this is my punishment for my cowardice. this is my punishment for all the things i never said.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr: starvcdsaint  
> instagram: starvcdsaint


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